A Nation of Salesmen: The Tyranny of the Market and the Subversion of Culture

by Earl Shorris

Ever since the snake tempted Eve with the apple in the Garden of Eden, selling has been an integral part of our culture. In this groundbreaking work on the nature and meaning of the sale, Earl Shorris skillfully blends philosophy, politics, psychology, economics and piercing observation to demonstrate how, from Bill Clinton to your local doctor, we are truly a nation of salesmen.

Genres: Nonfiction

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1980

About the author

Earl Shorris was an American writer and social critic. He is best known for establishing the Clemente Course in the Humanities, named after baseball great and humanitarian Roberto Clemente. The Clemente Course is an "educational institution founded in 1995 to teach the humanities at the college level to people living in economic distress." He was critical of Western culture as "sliding towards plutocracy and materialism." Shorris published extensively on Mexico and Mexican history. Shorris made the acquaintance of Miguel León-Portilla, who published a widely-read anthology of accounts of the conquest of Mexico from Aztec viewpoints, The Broken Spears. The two subsequently published an important anthology of Mesoamerican literature, bringing to a mass market the existence of significant body of writings by indigenous Mexicans.